Organic Nonpareil Ming Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea

This is my third dragon well furnished by Teavivre. Nonpareil according to Wikipedia means ‘without equal’. This is a pre-ming tea. That means this is a rare high quality tea and a treat for me to get to try it.

The leaf is straight, flat, and emerald as it is supposed to be. Once the water hits it the aroma is an amazing steamed spinach. Love the scent. The first thing I noticed about the sip is it is very smooth and mellow. It is slightly sweet and has a milky like feel across the tongue.

I have also had the Superfine and the Premium versions of this tea. Each has the basic Long Jing flavor, yet each is different. This is the most mellow of the three. The Premium had the most bite. Teavivre says this has a chestnut like taste. I am not familiar with the taste of chestnuts, so I can’t verify the similarity. To me it is non-bitter Chinese grassy green tea with a woody/nutty kind flavor. The aftertaste lingers nicely.

It has been 4 days since I have had a good cup of tea. I have been too busy fighting a virus to even care about good tea (today I declare victory over you stupid virus). It was so tempting to just grab a low quality glass out of the fridge. So glad I took the time for this one today. A very nice cup.

Thanks to Teavivre for this sample for tasting! I am so glad that I my enjoyment for unflavored green teas has gone nowhere, even though I can’t get behind flavored ones so much anymore.

I think I oversteeped/overleafed this one a bit. Looking at steeping cup, I meant to only brew it for 1 minute but got distracted and it got an extra 30 seconds, so it is edging on too bitter-greens for me. Still, this is quite tasty. Very nutty and buttery, with a smooth, silky texture. A bit grassy, though I think that is accentuated by the oversteep. I am enjoying the later steeps as well, though for some reason they are still edging on that bitter grassiness. I’ll probably cut the leaf when I try this again; I’ll wait until then to rate it.

I used to drink a lot of Dragonwell at one time. This one is the classic embodiment of what a Dragonwell should be. The leaves are beautiful, flat, sage green, with a heady aroma of green-ness. They brew into a pale yellow.

The flavor is sweet & green, with a thickness to the mouth. Delicious.
Thank you Angel & TeaVivre for this lovely & generous sample!

How is it that I have no tasting note for this? I could have sworn I had it before! This is a free sample provided by Teavivre for review.

We haven’t been out for Asian buffet take out in a few weeks and decided to go tonight. We like to drink a nice green or oolong tea with our meal and this one caught my eye. I put the entire sample packet into my 24 ounce pot, heated the water to 175F, and steeped for just barely over one minute. The tea was so fragrant already! I immediately poured that steep into a tetsubin and resteeped those leaves, again for just a few seconds over one minute.

There is a lovely, light chocolate-y aroma here, as if I had eaten a candy bar and a little chocolate melted on my fingers and I can smell that faint scent. This tea has a lot of body, a vegetal taste, and just enough strength to make it taste super mellow with your food and still really good even without food. It doesn’t get astringent or bitter making it this way. I am rarely a fan of astringency. As I was eating, I noticed that the tea sometimes seemed creamy, without tasting buttery. Lots of body here!

This is a tea of high pedigree, and I would gladly recommend it to the friend who wants to start drinking greens but until last week had never found one she liked. This is a very enjoyable dragonwell!

Thank you, Teavivre, for the marvelous and generous sample!

I’ve been brewing up a cup here and there over the past couple days, thanks to Heather, who provided me with a sample. I’m still trying to figure out where I stand on Dragon Well.

So far, I’d say this is the most well-balanced straight Dragon Well I’ve had. There’s a balance between the sweet and vegetal flavours. Slightly grassy, slightly buttery, basically what Dragon Wells are all about.

I personally wouldn’t buy any since I’m not a fan of grassy and/or vegetal greens, but it’s always nice to further explore a particular type of tea.

Thank you Angel for this wonderful sample!!
Full review on http://sororiteasisters.com/ today at 6pm central but here are snippets:

When steeped properly there is absolutely no astringency and of course no bitterness. There is also a lovely light sweetness to the flavor that can be detected at different levels through the various steeps. The color is very light so do not be tempted to over steep this lovely tea. Take your time with it and let the flavors be gently caressed out of the leaf with shorter steep times which will provide you a longer and more relaxing brewing session. Green teas like this one from Teavivre are deserving of your time and focus. I do not recommend a tea like this for an out the door on the go tea. You can do that if you wish, but I feel it is cheating the tea from providing all that it has to offer and really just cheating yourself.

The aroma is strong, awakening, and as fresh as a tea can smell. The dry leaf is so pretty and bright green. The flavors range through various steepings from nutty, buttery, vegetal, and salty, but every single steep brings forth the freshest flavors you could imagine.

TODAY is the DAY!!!! It is Grey Cup day!!!!!! And my home town is hosting Grey Cup!!!!!! And the home town team MADE IT!!!!!! Go Riders!!!!!!

For anyone that doesn’t know, the Grey Cup is basically the superbowl but for the CFL (although it is nothing like the superbowl). My home town Roughriders (green and white) are playing the Hamilton TigerCats. Its gonna be aweome! And it is super crazy in the city. I made every effort to run all of my errands on Friday and it took forever, I was out of the house from 11am to 8pm. And then I was going to hide inside all weekend. Away from the crazies, and there are a lot of them, believe me. But then my mom texts me yesterday with a list of things she needed me to pick up for today. Oh man, its nuts out there. Everyone is in a hurry to pick up all the last minute things for the game, or trying to get to the game.

This tea is light and smooth. Today I am finding it to be sweet and the slightest bit floral. It is creamy and buttery. But there is also that nice green vegetal taste. Reminding me of wheat grass today.

So I may be a melon head, and I may bleed green, but I also drink GREEN! Take that Hamilton.

Thank you to Angel and Teavivre for these wonderful samples.
I am not usually a straight green fan, but I always love the opportunity to try free samples as my tastes are getting more refined toward straight teas.

This is a very good dragon well. Smooth and slightly sweet with that lovely buttery taste. This is probably the best dragon well I have ever tasted. Still probably not something I would order though.
Resteep 2 minutes.

Backlog:

I love Teavivre. They have some of the best teas available anywhere. So it probably goes without saying that I find this to be an excellent Dragon Well.

Sweet, vegetative, nutty (chestnuts!) with a nice buttery note. A savory tone that is almost like salt. (Nice contrast) This one holds up well through many infusions too.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/09/29/organic-nonpareil-ming-qian-dragon-well-long-jing-green-tea-teavivre/

Thanks first to Angel at Teavivre, who graciously sent me this tea as part of the spring harvest offerings.

I’ll start out by saying that I don’t really think I have a well defined palate for distinguishing subtleties in teas, especially greens. I do my best and try to gage what I taste, based on what others are tasting, and if I can connect the two somehow.

The leaves of this one are simply divine…rich green, broad and flat leaves. The scent coming from the newly opened packet was crisp and fresh, with some vegetal presence. I don’t think I could tell you which vegetables though. I used a bamboo tea spoon in my steeper, and used boiled water that had cooled for a few minutes (I lost track of time so I don’t know exactly how long). I also lack a thermometer so I am unsure of the exact temperature at the time of steeping. I did follow the 1 minute time for western style.

The brew, after a minute, was very very pale. I wondered whether I should have steeped longer. I get a mild tasting green tea, which has some presence and body, but not much. It’s still a bit too hot to get a good sip. I did add a small amount of sugar, less than I usually do. It does have that very savory flavour to it, in that brothy sort of way though, with or without sugar.

I am not an expert of green teas, especially Chinese green teas, and I can’t say as I’ve ever had a Dragon Well before. I feel like I have, a long time ago though. Also, I really have a hard time distinguishing varieties of the same tea. Maybe it is my allergies too. I’d like to have a tasting some time, with someone who knows what to look for in the teas to help me develop my palate sensitivity more.

What do I think of this tea then? I think it is a lovely looking tea, and the taste is smooth from what I can tell right now. I suspect more notes will come out stronger as the tea cools some, so I may come back here and add to this note. I can say that I do like what I have tasted thus far, but I can’t say I am in love. It is something that is a nice change of pace for me though.